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Even glamour has an underbelly

Welcome to the monthly installment of Glamorous In Real Life, sponsored by Marcy, who has it goin’ on when it comes to the glamorous life. Today’s rhinestone-encrusted gem is from the November 2007 vault. If you live in a state with the bottle-deposit law, you may know what I’m talking about.*

Image from examinor.com

As part of Girl from the West’s fund-raising efforts for her trip to Europe next summer, we initiated a returnable bottle and can drive. Oh, what jolly good fun it was to write and print the flyers, wait for the appointed pick-up day, and then stroll about the neighborhood and collect the booty in shiny black bags.

We marveled at the growing hill of trash in our back yard. We’d get them cashed in right away, we promised.

Well, they sat and collected leaves. They sat and collected rain water and leaves. Finally, after husband cleaned gutters and plopped gutter gunk onto leaf- and rainwater- covered bags, we decided that was our cue.

All I can say is: WTF? No wonder people are more than happy to dump 500 cans on their porch for us to haul away. This is not fun work. Maybe it’s our deflated economy. Maybe it was our choice of market or neighborhood. I don’t know but each time we went to the neighborhood grocery store to cash in these bottles and cans, it was some kind of nightmare.

First time: Every employee we sought help from was in some kind of bad mood on a bad day, squabbling with other employees in bad moods on bad days. Or, the machines were malfunctioning on some kind of bad day. Not only that, but the facility also is a strewn with trash, there are puddles of spilled beer and soda on the floor, and there is no heat.

It got to the point where we dreaded pushing the little buzzer for assistance, as most certainly some growling, cussing worker would emerge from behind the swinging doors in a swirl of discarded plastic bags insisting that we weren’t feeding the cans into the machines properly or that they were too squished. We just weren’t doing it right.

Second time: Not only were the employees in a horrible mood, but also the people waiting in line. With few exceptions, most appeared to be street people who had this down to a science. I guessed they were hungry and impatient to get cash in hand to buy a meal or drink or whatever was tearing at their guts. They probably resented us suburbanite yuppies in to cash out on our garden party returnables.

Image from hamiltonspectator.com

Girl from the West and I waited longer than anyone should for this sort of thing until it was our turn. As I rolled my overflowing cart to the glass bottle machine, I heard a commotion behind me. I turned to see Girl from the West being bull-dozed by a four-foot tall, screeching and elderly Asian woman in a knit hat.

I don’t know what she as saying or why she targeted us. I don’t know where she came from either. She was not ahead of us and I didn’t see her behind us. She came from nowhere plowing her cart like a tank and pinned Girl from the West between two carts. No one else in this long line did a thing. All stood and stared wide-eyed.

Girl from the West and I exchanged knowing looks, meaning: Do not move an inch. First opening, start pitching cans into the machine. Do not let her in. I don’t care if she’s 85 years old and homeless.

We learned our lessons as tourists in China. Once, while waiting in line at an airport bathroom, an elderly Chinese woman pushed and shoved me out of line while no one batted an eye. Not knowing what cultural faux pas I committed, I just endured the harassment. But this is my turf here.
So we stood our ground, while this holy terror continued her tirade in (I think) Chinese. The others in line continued to ignore her and say nothing. At one point, after numerous butts with the cart, Girl from the West pushed back. That stopped the harassment for a while.

Finally we were done and began to work our way through the crowd. Others in line asked us what we’d done to upset this woman. We told them we’d done nothing. One employee piped in that this was “typical stuff.” On my way past her, I stopped and told the woman there was no good reason for her to push us like that and that we all could be little nicer, couldn’t we? This fueled another tirade. I’m sure I was cursed to endure a thousand snake bites in the firepit of hell, and whatever else would be appropriate.

Who knew? I feel I’ve been introduced to a new world, one in which I hope not to set foot again.

** Quick tutorial: Collect bottles and cans marked with bottle deposit refund. Take bottles and cans to store. Got to bottle collection machines and feed them into machines. Collect receipt from machine. Go to cashier to claim your deposit refund. Go home and take a shower.

5 thoughts on “Even glamour has an underbelly”

Yeah! Trip to Europe! Wish that I was going. The recycling business sounds dicey. That’s strange about the cursing woman. At least you didn’t know what she was saying. It’s probably best that way. I hate to be cursed at in English. I get edgy.

Thanks one and all for reading about my glamorous life. There is nothing like hauling around plastic bags full of stinky beer bottles with cigarette butts in them to know you’re a diva.
Sadly, the Europe trip is over and done. My girl more than met her goal and spent every deflated US dollar. This is an archived item from last November, back when no one read my blog. So it’s fresh! After that bottle experience, we switched to more intelligent ways of raising money, like begging!
–MomZombie